


Bazalgette

by sylviarachel



Series: All the 221Bs [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Case Fic, Flash Fic, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I'm Sorry, Sewage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 04:26:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylviarachel/pseuds/sylviarachel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you share a flat with Sherlock Holmes, you never know what will happen there while you're at work. Today's edition is a bit more odoriferous than usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bazalgette

When John opens the door of the flat, the smell nearly knocks him over. Dank, putrescent, foecal, horrifying: raw sewage, a dirty belly wound, festering rot.

He clamps his nostrils with his free hand, tamps down the images that rise up from his back-brain to go with the smell, and shouts, “Sherlock!”

Sherlock’s face appears round the kitchen door, decidedly not dead, rotting, or dying of dysentery. “John!” he says. “You’re late.”

“What.” John’s voice is distorted by his closed-off nasal passages. “Sherlock, _what_ is that _smell_?”

“Oh,” says Sherlock. “Just some sewage samples. For a case.”

John can’t help himself: “Regurgitating public toilet in Bethnal Green?”

Sherlock stares at him, briefly. Then he makes his That’s-One-of-Your-Idiotic-Pop-Culture-References-Isn’t-It face and says, “Workmen from Thames Water found the victim’s body in a sewer pipe under London Road in Kingston last night. Suspect claims the splashes on his trouser cuffs resulted from a plumbing malfunction in his own flat, and that he had nothing to do with either her death or the disposal of her body. Having analysed samples from thirty different sewers in the greater London area, I can now confidently state that he is lying.”

“Oh,” says John, blinking. “Right. Good.” He toes off his shoes. “I’m for a shower, then.”

“Er,” Sherlock says. “John? You may want to avoid our bath.”

**Author's Note:**

> I noticed a horrible smell coming from the drain in our bath this morning. Twenty minutes later, this happened.
> 
> The location of the body was inspired by [this truly repulsive news item](http://www.thameswater.co.uk/media/press-releases/17205.htm). Sir Joseph Bazalgette designed London's sewer system.
> 
> Also: Another Sherlock fic, another gratuitous Harry Potter reference to apologise for.


End file.
